Water as Spiritual Practice – Jesus

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

Matthew 25.34-36

For a few comments on water as a spiritual practices visit Disciples Walk.

Ways to Worship and Serve – Frederick Buechner

To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for Him that He needs to have done – run errands for Him, carry messages for Him, fight on His side, feed His lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for Him that you need to do – sing songs for Him, tell Him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in Him.

From: Frederick Buechner

 

Celebrate Time – Abraham Joshua Heschel

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

From: Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, p 10

Listen – Frederick Buechner

I DISCOVERED THAT IF you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living on Rupert Mountain opened up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly. . . . If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

– From: Now and Then and Listening to Your Life, ( http://www.frederickbuechner.com/content/life-itself-grace )

 

Stopping – Walter Brueggemann

Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.

From: Walter Brueggemann

 

Spiritual Blunders – Frederick Buechner

“The Word became flesh,” wrote John, “and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). That is what incarnation means. It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity it is the way things are.

All religions and philosophies which deny the reality or the significance of the material, the fleshly, the earth-bound, are themselves denied. Moses at the burning bush was told to take off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy ground (Exodus 3:5), and incarnation means that all ground is holy ground because God not only made it but walked on it, ate and slept and worked and died on it. If we are saved anywhere, we are saved here. And what is saved is not some diaphanous distillation of our bodies and our earth but our bodies and our earth themselves. Jerusalem becomes the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven like a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). Our bodies are sown perishable and raised imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:42).

One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.

From: Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, p 55 ( www.frederickbuechner.com/content/wishful-thinking-page-55 )

A Sustained Act – A W Tozer

For the Christian, everything begins and ends in worship.  Whatever interferes with one’s personal worship of God needs to be properly dealt with and dismissed.  Keep in mind that above all else, worship is an attitude, a state of mind, and a sustained act … an inward act of the heart toward God.  

My heavenly Father, I begin today in joyful worship.  Thou hast called me, and I answer thee in praise and adoration.

From: A. W. Tozer, My Daily Pursuit: Devotions for Every Day

 

Manger and Kingdom – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is no longer a worldly throne and kingdom as it once was but a spiritual throne and kingdom.

Where are Jesus’ throne and kingdom?

They are where he himself is present, reigns, and governs with his word and sacrament, in the church, in the congregation….

We are called into this kingdom. We can find it, within the church, in the community of the faithful, when we receive the word and sacrament of the Lord Jesus Christ and submit to his authority, when we recognize the child in the manger as our Savior and Redeemer and let him bestow on us a new life grounded in love.

From: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works, v 16, p 616, “Christmas Night Sermon, 25 December 1940”.

(Find a couple of questions at Disciples’ Walk.)